


Mating Habits of the North American Beaver

by oliviacirce



Category: Gordon Korman - I Want to Go Home!
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007, recipient:bookchan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:46:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviacirce/pseuds/oliviacirce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rudy Miller is an actor, and sometimes actors have to take crappy jobs that involve beaver costumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mating Habits of the North American Beaver

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Barbara and Gigs for the beta. I have no idea what I was thinking, writing an entire additional story at the last minute, but it was fun! bookchan was my original recipient, pre-correction, and I found, in the end, that I just could not resist the amazing prompt: thanks, bookchan!

"You're wearing a beaver costume?" Mike's voice was high and squeaky on the other end of the line.

Rudy sighed. "It's not kinky at all, if that's what you're thinking."

There was a long silence. "I really wasn't," Mike said, strangled. "Um. Rudy?"

"I do appreciate the irony, Mike." He switched the phone to his other ear and opened the closet door, half-hoping the costume would have disappeared into some abyss full of nightmares and horrible little brothers. But it was still there, in all its toothy glory. "It's not very realistic."

"Somehow," Mike said, dryer than Rudy remembered him knowing how to be, "that doesn't reassure me."

"Well," Rudy said, slowly, "at least it's Jeffrey's fault." He didn't remember having to defend himself to Mike before, either, but times changed. People grew up. He and Mike had been apart for too long.

And it _was_ Jeffrey's fault, unlike most of the other outrageous events in Rudy's life to date. Rudy had been between jobs, looking for something to tide him over for the holidays, and he'd made the mistake of telling his family that if he had to be in another production of _A Christmas Carol_ he wouldn't be responsible for the consequences. Two days later, Jeff had called to offer him a job at the theme park.

"It's a short-term contract," Jeff had explained, "December through January, and you'd be free in plenty of time to start at Stratford." And then he'd rattled off a long list of perks and benefits. "I think you'll even like the costume."

"Costume," Rudy had repeated, stomach sinking in the way it only did on the rare occasions when his little brother got one over him.

"Nothing major," Jeff had said, blithely, "I'll have Adam send your agent the paperwork." Jeff, Rudy thought, liked his job far too much.

From the closet, the beaver suit's beady eyes stared back at him.

"Don't you," Mike was saying, "I don't know, _not wear_ beaver costumes? Seriously, Rudy, you have an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama."

"Apparently I _do_ wear beaver costumes." Rudy was an actor, and actors were whores, and the beaver suit was a gig. And by spring he'd be back at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where they'd promised him Cassius. _Such men are dangerous_ , indeed.

"I. Um." Rudy had hoped that Mike would laugh about this. He loved Mike's laugh. "I'm not really sure what to say."

"How far the mighty have fallen?" Rudy suggested, blandly. In person, that remark would have turned Mike red with anger and embarrassment, but Mike was in Vancouver, and Rudy was in Toronto.

"I have to go," Mike said. Rudy shut his closet door and went back into the living room. "We'll talk soon?"

"I'll call you from the theme park. I can make beaver noises on the phone." That made Mike laugh, the smallest version of the Mike Webster trademarked giggle, and Rudy was smiling--finally--as he hung up the phone.

\-----

Rudy Miller was an actor because acting was hard. It wasn't like sports, or chess, or dancing. He couldn't step onto the field and take the game in ten seconds flat. He had natural talent, of course--as much natural talent as he had for soccer and baseball--but he hadn't gotten acting perfectly on the first try. He'd made the wrong choices, he'd read the wrong things into the text, and he'd briefly, momentarily, been _bad at something_. Acting was like escaping from camp: he could do it brilliantly, but it took work, and time, and effort; it took patience, and intelligence, and long, exhausting rehearsals. And while some actors and directors were as painfully stupid as some camp counselors, more often than not they were actually worth knowing. He found, unexpectedly, that he loved acting so much that it didn't matter that he was good at it. It didn't matter that he was gorgeous, and had a strong, clear voice, and shone on stage with the pure glow of talent, because in the end, talent was only part of the whole.

\-----

"I hate Christmas," Rudy told the beaver in the mirror. "I hate Christmas, and I hate the holidays, and I hate children, and I hate theme parks, and I hate people who go to theme parks during the holidays with their children."

The beaver stared back at him, unmoved. Rudy sighed, and triple-checked all his zippers. He really didn't want to go out there. "And I miss Mike." Briefly, the beaver looked almost sympathetic.

"Oh hell," Rudy said, and padded out of the changing room.

\-----

Mike Webster was Rudy Miller's best friend in the entire world. More accurately, Rudy Miller was head over heals in love with Mike Webster, and really wanted to get in his pants. But Rudy had been friends with Mike for almost twenty years, and Mike was straight, and even more problematically, Mike lived in Vancouver, where he had an amazing job and a dog and an apartment and probably several girlfriends on the side. Rudy hated all the girls in British Columbia on principle, and he also hated the dog, but he tried not to say anything about that when he was on the phone with Mike.

\-----

"It's, ah, a really--good--look for you," Jeff choked out when he came to see Rudy in his incredibly stupid Canadian Wildlife theme park beaver show.

"I've always been fond of beavers," Rudy replied, as deadpan as always.

"Sorry--sorry," Jeff wheezed. "It's just, um, I." He gave up, doubling over with hysterical laughter.

Rudy's mother was frowning at him. He thought she'd be better off frowning at Jeffrey. "Is this a cry for help?"

" _Mom_ ," Rudy said, slightly muffled behind the beaver's buck teeth, "I'm twenty-seven years old. And it's a temporary job."

"It's a _beaver_ ," Susan Miller said significantly. "And Jeff said you could have been a moose, instead."

Rudy sighed. "I can assure you that my choice of beaver over moose had everything to do with the beaver's rather better lines, and nothing whatsoever to do with Alcatraz. "

"Hmm," said his mother.

\-----

Alcatraz. The less said about that, the better. But on the other hand, Alcatraz--better known as Camp Algonkian Island--had, in its own horrific way, shaped Rudy Miller's life for the better. For one thing, he'd met Mike.

\-----

"Hi," Mike said.

Rudy blinked. "You're--here." Mike _was_ there, all awkward smiles and tousled hair, his hands tucked into the pockets of his frayed jeans. He looked about seventeen.

"I'm here, and you're wearing a beaver costume," Mike agreed, and hugged him.

"My show's over," Rudy said inanely. "I can take the beaver costume off now."

Mike pulled away, grinning, and Rudy was suddenly very glad for the several layers of fake fur between them. "I sort of like it, actually."

Rudy raised an eyebrow, even though Mike couldn't see it. "The things I never knew about you, Mike Webster."

Inexplicably, Mike blushed. "Does the head come off?"

"What," Rudy gasped, regaining ground, "you want to behead the beaver?"

Mike snickered. "No, but I did come a long way to see you, you know, miles and miles and miles. I can see beavers at home."

His costume was suddenly too warm, so Rudy unzipped the head and pulled it off. It was brighter outside the costume than he'd realized, and the light gilded Mike's hair gold. He was doomed.

"So what brings you to Ontario?" he asked.

"Well, Christmas." Mike had family in Ontario, of course, his parents and Vicky. Rudy knew better than to think that Mike was here for him.

"Also," Mike added, "I couldn't really pass up the chance to see you in a beaver costume."

Rudy sighed. "No, well, there you are, me in a beaver costume."

"Hmm," Mike said. "Also, I thought maybe, I should, um," he stopped, and looked away, and then back at Rudy. "Oh hell," he murmured, and leaned over to kiss him, lightly, on the mouth. Rudy froze.

"You do have a beaver fetish," he said.

"No," Mike frowned. "I have a Rudy fetish."

"What--but--since when?" Rudy couldn't remember the last time he was this tongue-tied. It had probably never happened before, given that Mike had never kissed him before.

"Since always," Mike said, exasperated. "Why do you think I moved to British Columbia? You clearly didn't want me."

It seemed, Rudy thought, that their communication skills could use some help.

"Anyway," Mike continued, "your mother said that the beaver costume was a cry for help, and that you needed an intervention, and Jeff couldn't stop laughing, and I thought maybe I should--I don't know. Give it another shot. I don't know what I'm doing, Rudy, you're the one with all the brilliant ideas."

Mike was staring at his shoes, face red and eyes suspiciously bright, and Rudy couldn't take it anymore. He dropped the beaver head, and reached out with both hands to pull Mike back in.

"So, okay," Mike said, some time later, "I guess I was wrong."

"Me too," Rudy agreed, unable to stop staring at Mike's mouth, which was wet and red with kisses. "Also, I think we should go before I get fired for making out with my boyfriend while in costume."

Mike blushed, "Yeah, we should, um, get you out of that costume."

Rudy laughed, and bent to pick up the head. It seemed, after all, that he owed the beavers of the world rather a lot. "You can carry the beaver's head," he said, holding it out to Mike.

Gravely, Mike took it. "I would be honoured."


End file.
